


Takes a Village

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 17:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17430287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jester never really thought about having kids until she met a stranger in need of her help.





	Takes a Village

Jester should’ve realized that it was going to be a weird day when she saw her neighbor crying on the stairway. It was the one who lived across the hall with his cat and always had his nose stuck in a book. His head was down in his hands and soft sobs came from him.

“Are you okay?” Jester asked.

He looked up at her his blue eyes rimmed red. Hurriedly he wiped his eyes and got up. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry, I’ll get out of your way.”

Jester frowned at this, but there probably wasn’t much she could do. “Well, okay. But if there’s anything I can do for you let me know.”

“You can marry me,” he said.

“What?!”

“Sorry, bad joke. I wasn’t thinking,” he said. But it almost sounded sincere when he said it.

Jester tugged on his coat sleeve before he could get away. “Are you sure you’re okay? Cause I’m pretty good person to talk to about your problems, you know.”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he said. But, he looked so weary that it didn’t feel right to leave him alone. “Besides you’re a complete stranger.”

“My name’s Jester! There, now we’re not strangers,” Jester said with a smile. “And I’m going to worry no matter what, and if I don’t know what’s wrong, I’m going to worry even more. So you might as well tell me.”

A slight smile crossed his face and then he sighed. “If there’s no other way out of it, I suppose I should talk. My name’s Caleb Widogast, and there’s this girl.”

“Oh, lady troubles.” Jester nodded sagely. ”I know all about those.”

Caleb blushed bright red. “Not that kind of girl. She’s 14 and here-” He pulled out his cellphone and showed Jester a picture. It was of a small teenage girl all wrapped up in bandages and covered in an oversized hoodie. She was flipping off the camera with a defiant smile. “Her name’s Nott and she practically lives in the school’s library, where I work.”

“She looks real sweet,” Jester said.

“She is,” Caleb said with a fond smile which quickly faded. “But her situation’s a bad one. Her family, I knew it was bad, but I found out yesterday that it’s a lot worse than I realized. So I’m trying to get her out of there.”

Jester frowned. “Why don’t you just call CPS?”

He shook his head. “Not without a plan. There’s no way I’m letting her get lost in the system. She’s too young to be emancipated, so I was going to get signed up to be a foster parent and maybe even adopt her someday.”

“That’s a lot of work isn’t it?” Jester asked.

Caleb nodded. “But, she’s worth it. Only thing is this state has a law against single men fostering girls.”

“And so you asked me to marry you.”

“Ja. It was a silly idea. A bad joke really,” Caleb said.

Jester gave it some thought. “Yeah, I mean you could just have me foster her for you.”

“What?”

“Well, yeah if single woman can foster girls, then it shouldn’t be an issue, right?” Jester asked.

Caleb stared at her with disbelief. “Why would you do that?”

“You said that she was in a super bad situation and you obviously care about her,” she said. Caleb nodded. “So, I’m not out anything trying to help her.”

“It will take a lot of work,” Caleb said. “I can’t ask this of a stranger.”

Jester tapped her chin with thought. “Then how about we become friends? This is something you can ask of a friend.”

“I don’t even know if you can be trusted with children,” Caleb said. “And it takes months to fill out all the paperwork.”

“Then you’ll have plenty of time to decide if you trust me,” Jester said. She held out her hand. “So what do you say? Deal?”

Caleb frowned at her hand and, with a reluctant sigh, shook it. “Deal. You have no clue just what you’ve agreed to.”

“That’s the fun part,” Jester said brightly. “But, you’re going to help me, right, friend?”

Caleb laughed. “Right, friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is more like a pilot. I'm just trying out a few different ideas and seeing what I like and what other people like. At first this was going to be a marriage of convenience AU, but since Jester could just foster Nott on her own the marriage part felt completely unnecessary. Out of the one shots this is the one I'm least sure of, but I still wanted to see what other people think.


End file.
